Philadelphia Phillies: Vance Worley’s Solid Start Also Shows Slight Flaws

Vance Worley seems to be doing pretty well so far.

After five appearances last season as kind of a preview, where he went 1-1 with an ERA of 1.38, he got another opportunity this year with the injury-ridden Phillies pitching staff.

He has had a solid campaign so far, but there are a few areas that could be slightly improved.

First, the solid part. In seven appearances this season, he is 2-1 with a 3.41 ERA. He is also receiving an average of 6.28 runs of support in every start, and he is not wasting this support by allowing a lot of runs. Roy Oswalt would kill for this kind of run support, I’m sure (he is only receiving 3.60 runs of support on average). Worley has 22 strikeouts in 29 innings. These are all solid numbers, and he has more than filled in for the injured Joe Blanton.

However, he is throwing far too many pitches. He is reaching the 100-pitch mark around the sixth inning. He has not made it past the sixth inning in any start this season and has only made it even that far twice out of five games started.

Another slight area of concern is a high hits per nine innings ratio. He is giving up an average of 9.9 hits per nine innings. While he hasn’t been allowing them to score very much, if he could give up a few less hits, that would be better in general, but it would also alleviate the problem of a high pitch count.

These problems are not that major as long as the Phillies continue to provide him with a lot of run support and he is able to continue stranding runners on base. However, this is still kind of a dangerous situation.

Worley is having a solid season so far, but of course he has room for improvement. I am confident that these slightly higher numbers will come down to better levels as the 23-year-old continues to mature, and I think that he will be a solid option for the rest of Blanton’s DL time.

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